– Tom Service, The Guardian, March 2009
As a soloist he works with major orchestras around the world and has given concerts with conductors including Christoph von Dohnányi, Sylvain Cambreling, Peter Eötvös, Christoph Eschenbach and Kent Nagano. Several clarinet concertos have been dedicated to and premiered by him. In 1999 he performed Musik für Klarinette und Orchester by Wolfgang Rihm as part of 'musica viva', and in 2006 Cantus by Aribert Reimann with the WDR Sinfonieorchester Cologne. At the beginning of the 2008/09 season the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under Mariss Jansons presented his new orchestral work Con brio. In July 2009 Am Anfang – part art installation, part opera – by Anselm Kiefer and Jörg Widmann was premiered as part of the 20th anniversary celebrations of the Opéra Bastille.
In summer 2009 he was Composer-in-Residence at both the Schleswig-Hostein and Lucerne Festivals. In the current season he is Composer-in-Residence at the Cleveland Orchestra and Vienna Konzerthaus. In November 2009 the Wiener Philharmoniker under the baton of Christian Thielemann premieres a new orchestral work at the Konzerthaus, followed by performances in Paris, Cologne and Amsterdam. And in spring 2010 the Deutsche Oper am Rhein will stage a revised version of his opera Das Gesicht im Spiegel.
